Shaw’s Fish and Lobster Wharf – New Harbor, Maine

Thought I had eaten the Shaw’s lobster roll, not because I remembered it, but because I found a tee shirt in my closet with their logo. As I walked up this time, it all came back to me. This was where, 10 years earlier, on another cold, foggy, rainy day, we had taken the ferry to the magically. creepy Monhegan Island, nearly freezing to death on the way. This was before I was wholly obsessed with eating every lobster roll possible. I had never actually eaten here. We only watched them unloading and sorting the lobsters while we waited for the ferry. Good to remember the actual situation, it’s rare I forget a lobster roll. This is a real working wharf, the restaurant is on the top of the warehousesque building. Indoor and outdoor seating, good ordering system with two windows and a separate bar for booze.

The lobster roll was a good looking thing, all glossy perfect looking meat. The meat lived up to the looks. Chunks of tail and claw, couple of giant spongies. It tasted freshly off the dock. I can’t quite explain how some lobster just tastes perfectly fresh, but it tastes like the sea, in a good way. The rest of the lobster roll was kind of a letdown. The bun was standard, wondertype, not very buttery grilled and the bun was filled to the top of the bun with shredded iceberg lettuce. The meat was just sitting on top, so there wasn’t nearly as much as it appeared, like a padded bra, falsely enhanced. The lobster roll here seems like a bit of an afterthought to the main attraction of whole lobster, which is what I’ll get the next time. Also the peanut butter pie, fantastic, skip the key lime.

Visited Shaw’s Lobster Wharf today with guests from Texas who had loved it several years ago. Unhappily, none of us enjoyed the lobster today. It no longer arrived with any initial breaks to ease in getting the meat, there were no picks to pick out the meat from the sweet knuckles of other parts, and the tail was TOUGH! I have never had a lobster like it. We worked so long trying to get to the major parts of the meat that it was cold by the time we could eat. We asked for one to be cut open since the woman has arthritis in her hands. They agreed and returned it 15 minutes later, uncut. We ordered her a lobster roll that she was able to eat and said the meat was more tender than in the lobster. When I mentioned it to a neighbor, she had heard two similar complaints in the past few days. How very sad. What has happened there?